- [Instructor] Our first project will be to createthe Synthetic Depth of Field effectusing the Field Blur filter,and I'm going to start things off with this 3D modelof a Deinonychus, which is the dinosaurthat passes for a velociraptor in the Jurassic movies.It might've had feathers, but it comes to usfrom the PixelSquid library, about which you can learn more,if you like, at pixelsquid.com/deke.Now, the great thing about these is they're not just models.They're already wrapped up in materials,and they're lit as well, so all you need to dois rotate these items in 3D space and then scale them,and PixelSquid automatically generatesthe 2D Photoshop layers so that you can fully integratethe artwork into a photographic scene.

And so I threw in this photographic background right here,and as you can see, things are way too bright,and as a result, the dinosaur hasa sort of plastic finish to it,which is why I went ahead and deleted this adjustment layer,which was automatically generated along with the 3D artwork,and if you'll take a look at the face right here,you'll notice that I also went aheadand brightened up the teeth and drew in a new eye.And again, one of the great things about PixelSquidis that it provides you with assistancefor masking your artwork,and that helped me to select the teeth and eyes,and we'll also see how it worksto our further advantage in the next movie.

And if you want to see how I put all this stuff together,then you can check out Deke's Techniques 488-490,which came out at the beginning of the year, 2016.All right, I'm going to go ahead and selectthis Intro Elements group and press the backspace key,or the delete key on a Mac, to get rid of it.And then I'll select this group right here, PixelSquid Dino,and the idea is I want to insert a layerin between these two groups that integrates the dinosaurinto the bright sunlight.I'll start by creating a new layerby pressing control shift N, or command shift N on a Mac,and I'll just call this layer Flayer and click okay.

And then I'll select the Brush tool,which of course you can get by pressing the B key,and I'll right click inside the image windowand I'll crank this size value up to 800 pixels,and I'll leave the hardness set to 0%,and then I'll tap the D key to make surethat I've got my default foreground and background colors,followed by the X key to swap them,so that my foreground color is white,and then I'll just go aheadand click in the center of that sunshine, like so,in order to better integrate the dinosaur into the scene.

All right, now let's blur the backgroundin order to give it a depth of field effectby first selecting my Trees layer.Naturally, I want to apply Field Bluras an editable Smart Filter, so I'll convert this layerto a Smart Object by pressing the M keyto switch to my rectangular Marquee tool,and then I'll right click inside the image windowand choose Convert to Smart Object,or if you loaded D-Keys,you can press that keyboard shortcut of control comma,or command comma on the Mac.Next, go up to the Filter menu, choose Blur Gallery,and then choose Field Blur, which also has a D-Key shortcutof alt F6 or option F6 on the Mac.

Now, notice that the Blur Galleryoffers a total of five different options,all of which are made available to youas soon as you press that shortcut.So as you can see, the Blur Galleryends up taking up the entire screenand offering access to all five of those filters,starting with Field Blur.Now, just as with Gaussian Blur, you can change the radius,either to add more blur or less if you like,but unlike Gaussian Blurand the other old-school blur filters,you have a center point in the form of this pin.

And so notice that I can drag the pin aroundto any point that I like.Now, initially, it's not going to make any difference,and that's because we have one pinthat affects the entire background.Now, I should mention,even though I think it's pretty obvious,that another great thing about the Blur Galleryis that we're able to preview the effectin the context of the larger composition.So, even though the dinosaur is not affected,it's part of that preview.All right, but let's say that you wantto crank the heck out of this blur value,either by changing the setting directlyin the top right corner of the screen,or by dragging around the perimeterof this widget right here, and so we might imaginethat we want a ton of blurin the top right corner of the image,but we want less blur in the bottom left corner,in which case, just go ahead and click with this pinto create another blur point,and now I could reduce that blur value like so,so we're essentially creating a gradient blur.

A few other items you might want to take note of,let's say you want to get rid of a pin,then just go ahead and click on itand press the backspace key, or the delete key on the Mac,to make it go away.Or, let's say that I have a bunch of pins on screen,I can get rid of all of themby clicking on this looping iconand then I will have no pins whatsoever.Fortunately, by the way, you have a single level undo,so I can bring back those pinsby pressing control Z here on the PC, or command Z on a Mac.All right, I want to get rid of this guy right here,so I'll press the backspace key, or the delete key on a Mac,to get rid of him, and I'll drag this pin upand to the left a little bit,and I'll change the amount of blurby dragging the perimeter of this widget'til I see a value of 12.

I'll click on this guy and just get rid of himby pressing the backspace key, or the delete key on a Mac.I'll move this guy to about there.A blur value,as we can see in the top left corner of the screen,of 15 pixels is just fine.Now let's say that you want to, for whatever reason,duplicate one of these pins,then press the control and alt keys,or command and option on a Mac,and drag that pin to a new location,and you will not only duplicate the pin,but you will duplicate its blur value as well.I'm going to move this guy down to right about there,and then I'll take the value downto seven pixels, is what I'm looking for.

A few other options that are available to you,you could turn the preview on and off,either by clicking on this check box or pressing the P key.So I press the P key to turn off the preview,and then press P again to turn it back on.If you want to hide these widgets on screen,then you can do so temporarily by pressingand holding the H key for Hide,and then as soon as you release the H key,those pins will come back.If you want to send them away for good,then press control H, or command H on the Mac,and then if you want to bring them back,press control or command H once again.

Now remember, if at any time you wantto bring the scene back into focus,just set another pin down like so,and then reduce its blur value all the way to 0,and that will return that specific location to sharp focus.And so you might think of each one of these pinsas a kind of radial gradient of blur.All right, I don't want that guy, however,so I'll just press the backspace key,or the delete key on a Mac, to get rid of it,and then I'll accept my changes by clicking okay.And that's how you turn a fakey looking dinosaurinto a fairly terrifying looking monsterwith the help of the Field Blur filterhere inside Photoshop.

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6/22/2017

Sharpen your Photoshop skills by tackling more advanced Photoshop techniques. This is the third course in a comprehensive Photoshop training series by industry expert Deke McClelland. One-on-One teaches you what you need to know about Photoshop, in the order you need to know it, on the schedule that works best for you. In this installment, Deke helps you attain mastery at the premiere image editing program by familiarizing you with some of its more advanced features. Learn new shortcuts, how to assign and convert color profiles, how to customize the Photoshop toolbox and menus, and how to create trendy, dynamic Twirl art. Plus, Deke explains how to turn a photo into a dot drawing, eliminate halos with the Minimum filter, edit videos in Photoshop, and much more.